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General Information

On this page, we list your Blood Death Knight core
abilities and how they should be used together (rotation) in World of Warcraft
Legion 7.3.5. We also explain when
to use your various cooldowns. Then, we go deeper and present all the subtleties
that you will need to know if you want to excel at playing a Blood
Death Knight.

The other pages of our Blood Death Knight guide can be accessed
from the table of contents on the right.

About Our Reviewer

This guide has been reviewed and approved by Volstatsz, a Blood Death Knight theorycrafter and moderator for the Acherus Death Knight community. You can follow him on Twitter.

1. Rotation

Generally speaking, your goal during each fight is to use your resources
(Runes and Runic Power) to generate threat and to stay alive. The rotation for
single target and AoE is extremely similar, so we have grouped them
together. The recommended playstyle is based on the following priority of
abilities.

Use Marrowrend if your Bone Shield is close to expiring
(3 seconds or less), or if you will not be in range of a target before your Bone Shield will expire.

Generally, you will weave Death Strikes into the rotation as
necessary. Aim to maximise your healing from Death Strike; use an addon to
track how much a Death Strike will heal you for to optimise your Death Strike
usage.

Both Marrowrend and Death Strike apply the Recently Used
Death Strike buff for 3 seconds, which is the Death Knight active
mitigation check. Make sure you have Runes or Runic Power available on fights
with active mitigation checks to use these abilities.

2. Taunting

Dark Command is your main taunting ability. It only works on a single
target and has an 8-second cooldown.

Death Grip grabs your target and moves it to your location. It also
has the effect of taunting the target and interrupting spellcasting. The
movement effect does not work against most raid bosses.

3. Survival Cooldowns

Below, we present the cooldowns at your disposal and quickly go over how
they should be used. More information about each cooldown can be
found in subsequent sections.

Anti-Magic Shell absorbs up to 30% of your maximum health in magic
damage over 5 seconds, and should be used to mitigate magic damage and generate
Runic Power.

Vampiric Blood increases your maximum health and the amount of
healing you receive by 30% for 10 seconds. It should be used either proactively
in anticipation for high amounts of damage, or reactively when low on health
and in danger of dying.

Icebound Fortitude reduces all damage taken by 20% for 8
seconds. It should mostly be used proactively when you anticipate taking
high damage, such as from specific boss abilities.

4. Optional Read: Mastering Your Blood Death Knight

While the information we gave in the previous sections will yield very good
results, there are many things you should be aware of, in order to play
your Blood Death Knight to its full potential. In particular, we explain
in great detail how to properly use your various survival cooldowns.

4.1. Runes and Runic Power

Death Knights use a dual resource system of runes and Runic Power. While it
is quite straightforward in how it works, we will explain it here for the
sake of completion.

4.1.1. Runes

You have a total of 6 Runes, which are available by default. Some of your
abilities have Rune costs, and whenever you use an ability that consumes one
or more Runes, those Runes will immediately begin recharging. The exact amount
of time it takes a Rune to recharge depends on how much Haste you have.

Whenever a Rune is consumed, you gain 10 Runic Power (more on that
below).

At most, 3 of your runes can be charging up at the same time. It is
therefore optimal to keep at least 3 runes on cooldown in order to maximise
the recharge rate over the course of the fight.

4.1.2. Runic Power

Runic Power is a resource that resembles Rage, in the sense that it
decays when out of combat, but does not decay during combat. As mentioned
above, consuming Runes generates 10 Runic Power per Rune spent, and this is
the primary means of generating Runic Power, although some abilities also
help with this. You can have a maximum of
115
Runic Power.

4.2. Artifact Ability

Consumption is your Artifact ability. It has a 45-second cooldown
and it deals damage to all enemies in front of you, healing you for the same
amount. Despite the fact that it heals you, this ability should not normally
be saved for its defensive purposes. Against a single target, its healing is
quite low. Even against multiple targets, the healing is typically not
impactful enough to warrant saving the ability, so you should simply use it
on cooldown. The only exception is if you will have to
deal with a particularly dangerous moment when you want to have all the healing
possible.

4.3. Detailed Cooldown Usage

4.3.1. Anti-Magic Shell

Anti-Magic Shell should be used whenever there is magic damage to
mitigate (such as breath attacks, for example). The mitigation that it offers
is very high. It has a short duration (5 seconds) so you will need to be quite
accurate in timing it.

It also has the benefit of preventing the application of magical debuffs on
you while it is active, and it can be used for this purpose, as well, depending
on the encounter mechanics.

Moreover, if you are using the Anti-Magic Barrier tier 3 talent,
you can use the ability to react to high amounts of damage, not necessarily
magic damage, which can threaten to kill you.

4.3.2. Dancing Rune Weapon

Dancing Rune Weapon grants you 40% chance to parry for 8 seconds.
Moreover, for the duration, there are several other benefits that you gain.

Uses of Blood Boil will leave additional Blood Plague
debuffs on your target. Your rune weapon's Blood Plague debuffs are not
attributed directly to you, and do not heal you. During Dancing Rune Weapon,
casting Blood Boil gives you 3 stacks of Haemostasis, the buff from
Skullflower's Haemostasis. Because of this, it is important to try not
to use two Blood Boils in a row, so you do not waste Haemostasis stacks.

Note as well that if you have the Mouth of Hell Artifact trait,
a second rune weapon will be present, doubling the above benefits.

Dancing Rune Weapon should typically be used for the extra DPS it
provides, although it can also be used defensively (mostly proactively, before
you take a high amount of physical attacks.

The Tier 21 Set Bonuses improve this ability, decreasing its cooldown and
providing a short boost to Rune regeneration when it expires. With the Set
Bonuses, there are some additional considerations when optimising your use of
Dancing Rune Weapon:

With the 2-piece bonus, it is generally worth delaying your use of
Dancing Rune Weapon until the next time you are actively tanking —
the 40% parry can help smooth tank transitions a great deal.

With the 4-piece bonus, it becomes more important to effectively use
resources during Dancing Rune Weapon, so as to not overcap runes or
runic power during the 10-second rune regeneration bonus. Do not be afraid to
go lower than usual on runes in order to maximise your use of
Heart Strike and Death Strike during Dancing Rune Weapon.

4.3.3. Vampiric Blood

Vampiric Blood is your most powerful cooldown. If grants you
30% extra health for 10 seconds, and increases your healing received (from all
sources, including self-heals) by 30%. It can be used both reactively and in
anticipation.

Red Thirst and the Service of Gorefiend legendary
both reduce the already-short cooldown of
Vampiric Blood. The use of these pushes Vampiric Blood even further to
the fore — Blood Death Knight cooldown usage is gauged more by
effectiveness and frequency of Vampiric Blood than anything else.

4.3.4. Icebound Fortitude

Icebound Fortitude is a straightforward damage-reduction cooldown
that lasts for 8 seconds, reducing all damage taken by 20%. Generally, you
should use this when you are about to take high damage from pre-determined
boss abilities, or when you are otherwise vulnerable (because the healers
cannot reach you or because your other cooldowns are unavailable).

Note that Blood Death Knights deal very poorly with abilities that take
into account damage amounts before absorbs and self heals (given their low
number of damage reduction abilities). One such example is
Elerethe Renferal's
Web of Pain; in cases such as these, Icebound Fortitude is an
essential tool in reducing damage taken, which can have a significant effect
afterwards.

4.3.5. Tier 6 Talents

Rune Tap works as a damage reduction cooldown, and you should use
it often to mitigate the damage of hard-hitting abilities that happen in
roughly the space of the 3-second duration of Rune Tap.

4.4. Death Strike and Blood Shield

Death Strike is your most important self-healing ability. It is also
part of your regular ability rotation during combat. In order to make the
most out of Death Strike and of your Mastery (Mastery: Blood Shield),
you cannot simply use Death Strike whenever it is available.

The most immediately apparent effect of Death Strike is that it heals you,
so it is always well used after you have taken damage to heal yourself back
up a bit and help the healers. Be smart about when you are using Death Strike.
As it depends on your damage taken in the previous 5 seconds, it should be
used after taking high damage. Of course, capping your Runic Power while not
using Death Strike should also be avoided.

You can also use it in preparation for taking damage, both by topping
yourself up, and also by stacking your Blood Shield to mitigate more
damage.

Regarding your Mastery, it is important to remember that the
shields provided by Death Strike only protect against Physical damage. It is
also interesting to note that the shield from your Mastery also counts as
active mitigation, which is typically relevant for boss abilities that
take this into account.

You should minimise Death Strike overhealing by making sure not to
use Death Strike when at or near full health. While using it at these times
does still grant extra health from Souldrinker and a shield from
your Mastery, it effectively wastes 40-50% of the ability's effect.

4.5. Bone Shield

Your Marrowrend ability applies 3 stacks of Bone Shield
each time you use it, up to a maximum of 10 stacks. As long as you have at
least 1 Bone Shield stack active, your damage taken is reduced by 16%, and your
Haste is increased by 10%. Each melee attack made against you consumes a Bone Shield
charge. Bone Shield also has a duration of 30 seconds, at which time the stacks
would simply drop off you (although this is unlikely to ever occur during a
boss encounter).

There is an internal cooldown of 2 seconds for Bone Shield charges being
consumed.

Keeping Bone Shield up is pivotal to playing Blood properly. The Haste
increase is essential for Rune regeneration and the damage reduction is
essential for survivability. Moreover, if you have taken the
Ossuary talent, then with 5 or more stacks of Bone Shield, the cost
of Death Strike is reduced by 5 Runic Power, which allows you to use it
more frequently.

Effectively, you will always want to prioritise maintaining high amounts of
Bone Shield stacks; you should use Marrowrend when you have 6
or fewer stacks of Bone Shield, unless you really need the additional Runic
Power to use Heart Strike x2, and even then you should immediately try
to re-stack Bone Shield.

21 Jul. 2016: Slightly updated the single target and AoE rotations to give Blood Boil more importance. Also clarified that Death Strike should not simply be used on cooldown, since it is part of your active mitigation.